This term (Fall '14) at school, I had the serendipitous oportunity to learn one particular feature of linguistics over the breadth of my entire schedule. This to me is the ulitimate in education: Learning one thing very well and having the oportunity over three separate classes to see how that thing works.

That thing was mood and modality and its interconnectedness. Okay, that's three things, but whatever.

In my Academic Writing class, I chose my own topic for a book review, an annotated bibliography, and then a final essay. In my Semantics class I had the opportunity to learn about mood and how it manifests throughout different languages. Did you know there are like 30 moods in language! (Damn! English has only three.) And finally in my Field Methods class, again, I was able to choose my topic, which was Mood and Modality, but this time in Moore, the language of the Mossi people of Burkina Faso.

I mention all this because I am making my papers available below. I do ask that if you do use any information, you cite me. Also, if all this is new to you, I highly recommend reading the paper on English before the paper on Moore. Enjoy, and please feel free to comment or ask me questions below.